Cleaning up World War II-era bombs and other explosives is steady business in Germany

By: KRISTEN ALLEN - Associated Press

BERLIN -- The earth shakes briefly in Berlin's Mittelheide city park, and a cloud of rain-soaked dirt rises over the ferns in the woods. Police have just detonated a football-sized anti-tank grenade from World War II.

More than 60 years after the war's end, removing unexploded bombs, grenades and artillery shells remains a full-time task for police and private companies all over Germany.

It's an occurrence so common that police explosives experts Thomas Mehlhorn and Joerg Neumann can joke about their delicate job as they sift warm pieces of shrapnel from wet dirt reeking of sulfur.

"When the weather isn't as bad as it is today, of course this job is fun," Mehlhorn said.

"It beats writing traffic tickets," said Neumann.

In Berlin, an average of 900 explosive cleanup operations take place each year. Of these, about 100 unexploded bombs are deemed too dangerous for removal -- a job for "sprengmeister," explosives experts like Mehlhorn and Neumann, who blow them up on site.

On a soggy Tuesday in August, workers from the Heinrich Heides GmbH company uncovered the anti-tank weapon during a typical day at the government-funded project to ensure the safety of public land. Often, it is construction or road workers who find the bombs.

"There are weapons of all kinds lying hidden everywhere in the ground," said Fritjof Luetzen, who heads hazardous waste and military ordnance disposal for Berlin. "Everyone who works in construction knows that if they spot something cylindrical or suspicious in the ground to drop everything and call the police."

British and American bombers dropped almost 2.7 million tons of bombs on Germany during WWII. Many went wide of their targets and did not go off, a buried legacy that affects construction, forestry, farming and fisheries.

Berlin, which was bombed heavily throughout the war and then captured by the Soviet army in a bloody battle in April and May 1945, has the most hidden bombs. The entire city is categorized as potentially dangerous.

The problem gets trickier with time as bombs corrode and destabilize. In an ongoing effort to find and remove the unpredictable relics, Luetzen's office pays private firms $2.87 million each year. The companies uncover an average of 87 tons of weaponry each year in public and private projects. In 2004 alone, workers found 160 bombs, 2,400 grenades, 1,500 explosive devices and 2,700 guns and other weapons.

It's not uncommon for entire neighborhoods and thousands of residents to be evacuated so workers can remove an old bomb. Most discoveries, like the one-ton Soviet bomb found at a construction site in Berlin's Lichterfeld suburb in July, are defused without incident.

While construction companies are not required to have their sites surveyed for bombs, most prefer to avoid accidents like one that killed three construction workers, injured eight bystanders, and tore through nearby buildings and cars in 1994.

At a company's request, the Senate Department for Urban Development hires a private firm to survey a site, a practice that experts estimate will keep weapons removal companies in business into the 22nd century.

Once they're hired, companies like Heinrich Hirdes consult the city's archive of historical documents and wartime aerial photos to determine which parts of a site are at risk.

The archive has two full-time employees who study the photos, taken by Allied planes during the bombing campaigns and acquired from the Americans for about $80 each. Researchers can tell whether certain bombs exploded by examining the smoke patterns in the photos, giving workers an idea of where to look.

Company employees know from their research that the woods they're surveying were in the path of Russian soldiers as they approached Berlin and began combing the area with powerful metal detectors. Small holes pock the ground where workers have unearthed rusty helmets, combat knives, artillery shells and bombs. Their work is entered into a computer system that records all bomb disposal work in the city.

Weapons removal projects go on across the Berlin year round, but residents aren't likely to know about them, even if they're next door.

"The key to this work is discretion," said Holger Kroenert, the Senate Department for Urban Development's weapons disposal expert. "It piques too much interest and can be dangerous."

In addition to live bombs and artillery shells, the first two hours at a sport park cleanup in Berlin's Neukoelln district, for instance, yields a dozen gas masks, combat knives, and a 1930's cigarette machine -- six cigarettes for 20 pfennig.

"Collectors would love to get their hands on the artifacts that workers dig up every day," Kroenert said.